(Image: Anchorhead Coffee)
A one of a kind Capitol Hill coffee and cafe space that went dark during the pandemic and never reopened is set to go… darker.
Anchorhead Coffee, with its Pacific Northwest rocker blacks and browns, will take over the former 12th Ave Stumptown location with plans for a new cafe, bakery, and coffee education lab to open this winter.
“When we saw this location, we had no plans to come to Capitol Hill,” Anchorhead co-owner Jake Paulson tells CHS, “but we were like, ‘We need to get this.'”
The new cafe will be Anchorhead’s fourth retail location in Seattle putting the company that started with two dudes deciding they were done with touring with bands so they started a wholesale coffee bean business on track — more or less — with its pre-pandemic plans.
Not that the last year has been easy on Anchorhead. “The pandemic definitely set us back years,” Paulson said. The eight-year-old coffee business was forced to permanently close a cafe during the pandemic challenges. It emerges, now, with a goal to get back on the path to growth and is looking beyond Seattle. Its current cafes can be found downtown, in Pike Place Market, and in downtown Bellevue.
First, Anchorhead will open on Capitol Hill.
Stumptown called the space on the edge of Seattle University home until closing the cafe during the COVID-19 lockdowns and never reopening. It had been a combined cafe and roasting facility for the Portland-based company but it shut down that venture due to expenses in 2016.
Paulson said COVID’s challenges have also brought opportunities. “With the pandemic, people are afraid to open new retail spaces,” he said. The result? “Helpful landlords” and “generous tenant improvement budgets.”
Anchorhead will put the full building back into motion. Upstairs, Paulson said the cafe and counter will be remodeled with the Anchorhead look and feel of dark finishings and pops of color. The new Anchorhead will “lean into really dark,” a response, he says, to the sterile feel that has been popular in cafe design. It’s probably also related to Paulson and co-owner Mike Steiner’s rock and roll backgrounds in deathcore bands, sound engineering, and audio production.
Downstairs, the basement will be home to a new bakery for Anchorhead as it continues to produce in-house pastries and more (“sausage-fennel scones, bacon biscuits, cardamom buns” and “quaffles” “constructed of a croissant dough that’s rolled like a cinnamon roll, smashed on the waffle iron, and served with maple syrup.” The cafe will feature an expanded menu including house-made lunch options, pastries and desserts as the bakery turns out “breads, laminated doughs, cakes, savory items and many one-off surprises.”
The downstairs area will also have more space for seating plus room for a training and demonstration area that will be used to ready new Anchorhead employees and help partners refine their coffee skills. Paulson said Anchorhead will also host events like cuppings and classes for customers.
It’s an opportunity to create a new base for the company in Seattle as it looks for what’s next in what has already been a rush of coffee growth and a business journey.
Anchorhead Coffee is planned to open at 1115 12th Ave this winter. Visit anchorheadcoffee.com for updates.
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